Friday, 28 February 2003

Excerpts from John Brady Kiesling's letter of resignation sent to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell:
( via plastic bag )

"Dear Mr. Secretary:
I am writing you to submit my resignation from the Foreign Service of the United States and from my position as Political Counselor in U.S. Embassy Athens, effective March 7. I do so with a heavy heart...

The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests....."

You can read this letter in full at The New York Times, which has an annoying free-registration to fill in for first time visitors.

religion truly is a load of shit, isn't it. up there with power-politics and advertising as the biggest waste of human time and lives that we've ever invented.

on today's news its announced that a special zone has been demarcated in north london that officially allows jewish people within it to be able to 'work' during the sabbath. work means things like jewish wheelchair-users being allowed to use their wheelchairs etc, which is otherwise not allowed on the sabbath outside of this zone.

"I'm quite tempted to come for a haircut, because I
desperately need one, but the issue that I campaign
for is a bigger issue than just me, thus I feel that
any publicity on 'the Salon' would be of more harm
than good.

Furthermore I don't enjoy being a minor celebrity: I
find it quite unpleasant to be recognised in the
street thus I am currently clean shaven (sans beard)
at the moment, and most people no longer recognise me,
and I wouldn't want to spoil such beardless anonymity.

Sorry I cannot be of any help, especially am I sorry,
as my hair is an absolute mess at the moment. But
there is no way that you will convince me to come on
the program."

Tuesday, 25 February 2003

Bush asks Daschle to limit Sept 11 probes ....President Bush personally asked Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle Tuesday to limit the congressional investigation into the events of September 11, congressional and White House sources told CNN. this followed a rare call to Daschle from Vice President Dick Cheney last Friday to make the same request.....

US agents told: Back off bin Ladens....US special agents were told to back off the bin Laden family and the Saudi royals soon after George Bush became president, although that has all changed since September 11, it was reported today.....

no investigation into Saudi funding of terrorism....The u.s. administration treads gingerly in targeting institutions that could lead to the Saudi royals and influentials. In December, Sens. Bob Graham (D-Florida) and Richard C. Shelby (R-Alabama) accused the Bush administration of refusing to declassify information that showed possible Saudi Arabian financial links to terrorists because it didn’t want to embarrass the Saudis and endanger its political ties. Shelby, sworn not to reveal classified material, said the information could involve “a lot of their leaders and probably even the royal family.”....

SY HERSH:-- Okay, the cream of the crop of Al Qaeda caught in a town called Konduz which is near ... it's one little village and it's a couple hundred kilometers, 150 miles from the border of Pakistan.

JANE WALLACE: So, we had the enemy surrounded, the special forces guys are helping surround this enemy.

SY HERSH: They're whacking everybody they can whack that looks like a bad guy.

JANE WALLACE: And suddenly they're told to back off--

SY HERSH: From a certain area--

JANE WALLACE: -- and let planes fly out to Pakistan.

SY HERSH: There was about a three or four nights in which I can tell you maybe six, eight, 10, maybe 12 more-- or more heavily weighted-- Pakistani military planes flew out with an estimated-- no less than 2,500 maybe 3,000, maybe mmore. I've heard as many as four or 5,000. They were not only-- Al Qaeda but they were also-- you see the Pakistani ISI was-- the military advised us to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. There were dozens of senior Pakistani military officers including two generals who flew out.

And I also learned after I wrote this story that maybe even some of Bin Laden's immediate family were flown out on the those evacuations. We allowed them to evacuate. We had an evacuation.

JANE WALLACE: How high up was that evacuation authorized?

SY HERSH: I am here to tell you it was authorized — Donald Rumsfeld who — we'll talk about what he said later — it had to be authorized at the White House. But certainly at the Secretary of Defense level....

a chronological list of U.S. Diplomatic and Commercial Relationships with Iraq, 1980 - 2 August 1990

Saturday, 22 February 2003

In English lore, headless cannibals. They have a little brain located near their reproductive organs, their eyes are in his their shoulders and their mouths are in the center of their chests. The were made popular by William Shakespeare in Merry Wives of Windsor (1602) and Othello (1605), but were part of English lore before that.

"We are invading because Saddam has nuclear weapons, is in league with Al Qaeda, is in material breach of U.N. resolutions, is a very bad man indeed, who gassed his own people, and the United States has never ignored, tolerated or supported that sort of thing when it suited us. Well, OK, maybe we did, but Donald Rumsfeld is really sorry for helping Saddam in the 1980s. He sees that was wrong now, and wants to make amends."

"Attorney General Ashcroft would also like you to lay off the book-reading for a while."
(via GREEN FAIRY)

Wednesday, 19 February 2003

RICHARD AND JUDY SHOW: 2 MEN KISSING

yes its 2003 and yet 75% of phone voters did not want to allow 2 men to kiss at the end of channel 4's richard and judy show.

JADED WRITES:
"Whilst we slip ever backwards in terms of intelligence and evolution, it is important to note that the 75% of phone voters watching the "Richard & Judy Show" were at home at 5pm (i.e. unemployed, students or the independently wealthy), they were by CHOICE watching "Richard and Judy" (surely an ironic piece of kitsch programming if ever there was one), and were bored/sad enough to ring in.

Okay - TV is not great at this time of day - but a flip around the dial reveals the things they were not viewing. Had they switched from the "progressive" Channel 4 to the right-wing, ultra-conservative, uber-crap, ITV they would have found...

"Crossroads"
Murray is aghast to find Vince locked in an embrace with Garth, who wants the chef to leave Crossroads and start a new life with him in New York...

Whilst I won't deny that homophobia is any less prevalent than it was 10 minutes ago, it's not possible to judge the viewers of "Richard and Judy" as being in anyway a model of the general public - check out the ad placement and you'll see what I mean...

People are instantly attracted to safe pet-hates at the moment, because they want to stop their brains imploding over the real issues (Hello! - War!). Hence the *-card playing of easy wind-ups - Asylum Seekers, Congestion Charging, Same Sex Kissing - it's just a pathetic ploy. We should expect better from our broadcasters.

I believe that substantial grants should be issued to those individuals who CAN divert the populous from thoughts of the imminent holocaust (that's what's going on here...). And if that's all there is... let's keep dancing...

JADED x"

i'm reminded that an earlier item on the same show was all about the wonders of duct tape, plastic sheeting and gas masks. its like the millenium bug never happened...........but then..... it didn't did it.

As a pretext for invading Cuba in the heyday of the cold war, American military leaders devised plans to blow up an empty US navy ship, issue a bogus list of casualties and blame Fidel Castro, according to secret papers cited in a new history of the National Security Agency.

The Pentagon document was drawn up 11 months after the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961 by 1,500 anti-Castro expatriates trained by the CIA. More than 100 were killed; the rest surrendered.

The memo was submitted to the five-member joint chiefs of staff, whose chairman, General Lyman Lemnitzer, recommended it to the defence secretary, Robert McNamara.

"We could develop a communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington," said the chiefs of staff. "The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United States.

Later the joint chiefs even suggested attacking Jamaica or Trinidad and Tobago and making it look as if the Cubans were responsible, hoping this might force Britain into a war on President Castro to protect Commonwealth members.
link

also worth downloading as pdf- web conspiranoids a sober perspective of the bush nazi conspiracy theory and foreknowledge of 911.

MidEastLog 'my everyday experiences as an American in Iraq and the Mideast'.

"Saturday was the day of massive worldwide demonstrations. It happened here in Baghdad too, but of a rather different nature.

IPT along with several other organizations formed a march of internationals starting from our hotel. Joining with us was the Italian anti-sanctions group, Bridges to Baghdad, the self-professed "Human Shields" (who have their own t-shirts), another British group with a name denoting something about truth and justice (my mind is foggy right now), and a group from Okinawa, Japan, called Music Not Weapons (the Japanese translates poorly.)."
link

Tuesday, 18 February 2003

"The dissident news-commentary Website, Yellow Times, was suddenly shut down by its hosting service during the first week of February 2003. The host claimed that Yellow Times was using up too many resources, yet when YT offered to pay for more service, the host refused. Making the claim even more ridiculous is the fact that YT is 100% text. No streaming audio or video, not even any jpegs. To say that an all-text site is using up too much bandwidth and other resources is nutty. It is almost certainly yet another (temporary) casualty of the War on Dissent."
link

"The Bush administration has chosen Jerry Thacker, a Pennsylvania marketing consultant who has characterized AIDS as the "gay plague," to serve on the Presidential Advisory Commission on HIV and AIDS.
Thacker just so happens to be a fundamentalist Christian who rails against homosexuality, which he calls a "deathstyle" comparable to incest and bestiality. Or at least, he used to rail against people who dig the same gender. If you search the Web now that Thacker is on the AIDS Commission, you'll find that his more outre comments have disappeared. But like Lazarus, Thacker's true feelings have been resurrected thanks to the divine powers of Google's cache and the Internet Archive."
link

"The US is abandoning plans to introduce democracy in Iraq after a war to overthrow Saddam Hussein, according to Kurdish leaders who recently met American officials.

The Kurdish leaders are enraged by an American plan to occupy Iraq but largely retain the government in Baghdad. The only changes would be the replacement of President Saddam and his lieutenants with senior US military officers.

The US appears to be returning to the policy it pursued at the end of the Gulf War in 1991. It did seek to get rid of President Saddam but wanted to avoid a radical change in Iraq. The US did not support the uprisings of Shia Muslims and Kurds because it feared a transformation in Iraqi politics that might have destabilised its allies in the Middle East or benefited Iran"

Friday, 14 February 2003

2MMRW'S MARCH

i intend going, all though i'm broke and will have to walk from here into town, which takes about an hour, but i have 2 confess i'm not that interested in mass mainstream marching.

on the whole i think marching in this country is a very polite event, for people who otherwise prefer to spend their lives not rocking the boat. the same sort of people who think that an 80's themed party is a bit wild.

and i hate the way that celebs always march in the front like they're some kind of leaders, for fucks sake.

the tv news hype is that maybe a million people will be marching in the uk. but that still means about 59 million people won't be.

Thursday, 13 February 2003

QUOTES OF THE WEEK

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

Goering at Nurembergvia ethel the blog (back after a prolonged absence)

"the West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?" - Mahatma Gandhi
from damn foreigner

From the beginning Nicaragua, as a Nation-State has been under attack. Its autonomy and sovereignty are repeatedly impeded. Since the 1850's, the U.S. government has intervened in Nicaragua numerous times, creating puppet governments to protect its economic and political interests.

U.S. Marines invaded Nicaragua on numerous occasions in the early 20th century. Beginning in 1927, General Augusto César Sandino fought the occupying U.S. Marines until they left in 1933. Sandino was murdered in 1934 by the head of the National Guard, Anastasio Somoza.

Heavily supported by the U.S., Somoza founded a brutal dictatorship in 1936, which was passed from father to son to brother for 43 years, amassing huge personal wealth and landholdings the size of El Salvador

In 1978 and 1979, structural injustice and repression spurred mass insurrections which the National Guard put down brutally, killing 30,000 to 50,000 people. Opposition to the Somoza regime was organized by the Sandinista National Liberation Front. On July 17th, 1979, after years of torture and bloodshed, the last Somoza resigns and flees to Miami, exiling to Paraguay.

The Sandinistas inherited a poverty-stricken country with high rates of homelessness and illiteracy and insufficient health care. The new government nationalized the lands of the Somozas and established farming cooperatives. They waged a massive education campaign that reduced illiteracy from 50% to 13%, and introduced an immunization program that eliminated polio and reduced infant mortality to a third of the rate it had been before the revolution.

It wasn't long before the country encountered serious problems from its 'good neighbor' to the north. The US government, which had supported the Somozas dictatorship until the end, was alarmed that the Nicaraguans were setting a dangerous example to the region. A successful popular revolution was not what the US government wanted. Three months after Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, the USA announced that it was suspending aid to Nicaragua and allocating US$10 million for the organization of counter-revolutionary groups known as Contras. The Sandinistas responded by using much of the nation's resources to defend themselves against the US-funded insurgency.

In 1984, elections were held in which Daniel Ortega, the leader of the Sandinistas, won 67% of the vote, but the USA continued its attacks on Nicaragua. In 1985, the USA imposed a trade embargo that lasted five years and strangled Nicaragua's economy. By this time it was widely known that the USA was funding the Contras, often covertly through the CIA, and Congress passed a number of bills that called for an end to the funding. US support for the Contras continued secretly until the so-called Irangate scandal revealed that the CIA had illegally sold weapons to Iran at inflated prices, and used the profits to fund the Contras.

This disastrous ten-year war cost 60,000 lives and destroyed the country's infrastructure and economy with estimated losses of U.S. $178 billion dollars. In 1990, Nicaragua held its second democratically-governed presidential elections. After suffering the brunt of war and a U.S. trade embargo, many Nicaraguans voted for the US.- backed UNO Coalition candidate Violeta de Chamorro. Many Nicaraguans felt pushed against the wall by their dire conditions and saw no other way to end the US's aggression. Yet, despite this coercion, the Sandinista Party still received 41% of total votes. Today, the FSLN is still the largest, most popular party in the nation. Nicaragua is one of the hemisphere's poorest countries, inflation and unemployment are high, and the government remains very dependent on foreign aid.
sources: 1, 2, 3

the FBI DEFINITION OF TERRORISM states that-
"Terrorism is the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives. "

Wednesday, 12 February 2003

theres a micro improvement in uk mass media reporting of the current "terror alert", with at least a nod towards public scepticism and the possibility thats its just government p.r.

of course there are no intelligent denials broadcast by any ministers. just a level of indignation that anyone should dare to question the official reality.

and thats the point really. because wether the danger is real or fake, nothing should ever remain publicly unquestioned or unquestionable.

the greatest danger in situations such as sept 11th is that it becomes instantly sacreligious to propose alternatives to the official knee-jerk reality. i am reminded of when the berlin wall came down and western journalists were repeatedly telling the east-berliners how lucky they were to now be able to experience democracy. one man responded "its not a one way street. there are equally skills that you westerners can learn from us. one such skill is how to extract truth from unrelenting mediated lies."

an article in the guardian nov 6 2001 quotes a middle-eastern person who says, "the american people are prisoners of their media." another says americans are being kept ignorant, "they're under media siege".

years ago i met a man in the street who theorised that northern ireland was a surveillance research laboratory, and that the militarisation and surveillance of northern ireland would only be dismantled once enough research had been carried out. once that had happened that research would then be put into practice globally. all the world is northern ireland now.

finally, it is irresponsible of journalists and public speakers to dismiss alternative perspectives concerning world events as mere conspiracy theory.

plus it is a fact that big business is an ideal profession for psychopaths to flourish in. the possibility that british and american policy is motivated by psychopaths at the top, is really not too far fetched.

the roof builders have been above me for two months now. they've had numerous accidents through my ceiling and just in case they actually kill me one day, or render me unconcious, i have an emergency notice pinned on the inside of my frontdoor detailing my name, a contact number and information making people aware that my cat and hamster will need looking after (unless they've been crushed to death by falling timber also).

-In an editorial yesterday, the editors of the New York Sun, a conservative newspaper founded last year, call on New York City to obstruct a protest against a potential war in Iraq for as long as possible and to monitor the protestors for "an eventual treason prosecution." -
via my analog life

Monday, 10 February 2003

-Syrians are masters of the art of Gesticulation. One of the most common is an outstretched hand and a flick of the wrist, which means "What Do You Want?" Another common one is raised eyebrows and a slight back throw of the head which means "NO." -

Use them all, put them in your spell checker, try them out on family and frends but dont use them in a CV or an exam. These new freespelings can now live and circulate ALONGSIDE standard conventional orthografy and may the easier, simpler speling win!! "
(via boing boing)

"i love tv, and i think its nothing to be ashamed of to spend a lot of time watching it.

tv never gets taken as seriously as films or books or whatever. it really annoys me when pretentious people write about tv and they'd clearly rather be writing about grand chinese opera or something like that.

thats what i really love about heat magazine. i don't want to be crawly, but the way heat writes about tv really shows how much you all love it."

"According to The Center for Public Integrity, the Justice Department has drafted "a bold, comprehensive sequel to the USA Patriot Act ... The bill, drafted by John Ashcroft's staff, has not had official release, but the Center for Public Integrity obtained a version dated January 9, 2003.

Dr. David Cole, Georgetown University Law professor and author of Terrorism and the Constitution, reviewed the draft legislation at the request of the Center, and said "It’s troubling that they have gotten this far along and they’ve been telling people there is nothing in the works.” This proposed law, he added, “would radically expand law enforcement and intelligence gathering authorities, reduce or eliminate judicial oversight over surveillance, authorize secret arrests, create a DNA database based on unchecked executive ‘suspicion,’ create new death penalties, and even seek to take American citizenship away from persons who belong to or support disfavored political groups.”
greaterdemocracy.org

"1,200 US citizens were asked: "To the best of your knowledge, how many of the September 11 hijackers were Iraqi citizens?"

Of those surveyed, only 17 percent knew the correct answer: that none of the hijackers were Iraqi. Forty-four percent of Americans believe that most or some of the hijackers were Iraqi; another 6 percent believe that one of the hijackers was a citizen of that most notorious node in the axis of evil. That leaves 33 percent who did not know enough to offer an answer."
via boing boing

plu·toc·ra·cy
NOUN:
1. Government by the wealthy.
2. A wealthy class that controls a government.
3. A government or state in which the wealthy rule.

"I no longer feel that voting is the main channel of feedback we have available to us as Americans. If not voting, then what? Protest. Good, old-fashioned, in-the-streets protest.

If protests didn't work, then the Washington DC police wouldn't arrest everyone involved in protests whether they have broken any laws or not. If protests didn't work, then the pro-war-cops wouldn't be spoofing the email addresses of legitimate anti-war email lists like those at www.votenowar.org and sending out fake spam in their name (getting them filtered by SpamCop, no less). If demonstrations didn't work, then the pro-Globalism forces wouldn't send fake activists wearing masks (large, 40-year-old men, by most accounts) to initiate violence and marginalize the effort.

The enforcers of the status quo go to great extremes to repress protests, because they know protests work. In fact the American regime is now rushing to war not because of any weather condition in Iraq, but to outpace the growing opposition. When polls show 70% of Americans against war, the war machine has a problem.

Yes, our nation is being controlled by thugs. Thugs who break the law, steal money, commit fraud, engage in documented treason, and will even go to war to support their short-term business interests. These thugs were not elected, because the electoral process is flawed and corrupt.
But like any village in controlled by gangs, America can stand up to the oppressors that carry out these deeds with (what's left of) our dollars and in our name.
Get online, get organized, and show up at protests."
douglas rushkoff January 25, 2003

Friday, 7 February 2003

Self-creation is the highest art

"We are prisoners of our natural brains.

As children we grow, and new programs are layered down, set into the jelly of our brains. When we are young we write many of these programs in order to adapt to a bizarre and often dangerous environment. And then we grow some more.

We mature. We find our places in our cities, in our societies, in ourselves. We form hypotheses as to the nature of things. These hypotheses shape us in turn, and yet more programs are written until we attain a certain level of competence and mastery, even of comfort, with our universe.

Because our programs have allowed us this mastery, however limited, we become comfortable in ourselves, as well. And then there is no need for new programs, no need to erase or edit the old. We even forget that we were once able to program ourselves. Our brains grow opaque to new thoughts, as rigid as glass, and our programs are frozen for life, hardwired, so to speak, within our hardened brains."
(David Zindell)

despite the fact that vincent and myself were both acquitted at our last magistrates trial, despite the fact that a jury unanimously found vincent not guilty at his crown trial, and despite the fact that i have been arrested naked in public 7 times without a single conviction.....

"One conclusion stands out: from the Civil War onward, engagement in war has left Americans less free when the war was over than they had been before the war.

In countless ways, the warfare state has proved inimical to the preservation of liberty, just as patriots such as James Madison warned us long ago that it would. War brings higher taxes, greater government debt, increased government intrusion in markets, more pervasive government surveillance, manipulation, and control of the public.

Going to war is the perfect recipe for expanding the size, scope, and power of the federal government. You have to wonder why so many conservatives, who claim to cherish liberty, enthusiastically embrace the government's schemes for plunging the nation into war."
For more of this interview, see "Paul Craig Roberts interviews Robert Higgs on War and Liberty"

NEW YORK.- The "Guernica" work by Pablo Picasso at the entrance of the Security Council of the United Nations has been covered with a curtain. The reason for covering this work is that this is the place where diplomats make statements to the press and have this work as the background. The Picasso work features the horrors of war. On January 27 a large blue curtain was placed to cover the work.

Fred Eckhard, press secretary of the U.N. said: "It is an appropriate background for the cameras." He was questioned as to why the work had been covered.

A diplomat stated that it would not be an appropriate background if the ambassador of the United States at the U.N. John Negroponte, or Powell, talk about war surrounded with women, children and animals shouting with horror and showing the suffering of the bombings.

1. an article in the printed edition that i can't find online concerning a murdered student. it mentions the wholly irrelevant infotainment that her father used to work as tour manager for van morrison, fleetwood mac and clannad. its a shame she hadn't taken up the student option of renting her forehead as advertising space before she was murdered, then the article could have squeezed a product placement in aswell.

2. The agency, Cunning Stunts, is offering students up to £88.20 a week to wear a corporate logo on their head for a minimum of three hours each day. The brand or product message will be attached by a vegetable dye transfer and the students will be paid to leave the logos untouched.

There have been five suicide attempts in the past three weeks by prisoners at the US naval base in Cuba's Guantanamo Bay, prompting Amnesty International to call for an investigation into conditions at the camp where al-Qaida suspects are held.

Some of the men have been held for more than a year under interrogation by the military, without charge, trial or access to lawyers or their families.

4. Ashcroft pushes for more death sentencesThe United States attorney general, John Ashcroft, has overruled his own federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for 28 defendants, in what has been criticised as a drive to spread capital punishment into states that have resisted it.

Thursday, 6 February 2003

TORTURE AND THE FIGHT AGAINST 'TERROR'.

Basil Fernando, the Executive Director of the Asian Human Rights Commission, a member of the OMCT network, stated in a recent press release that, “the argument favouring limited use of torture is contradicted by all of our experience.” He continued, “When torture is no longer absolutely prohibited, law enforcement attitudes change. Over time, the mentality that torture is acceptable comes to infect the entire system, and even persons accused of normal crimes get the same treatment as suspected terrorists…"

Wednesday, 5 February 2003

"Interception of telephone calls, email and post by police and the intelligence services has more than doubled since Labour came to power and is higher than at any time since the start of the second world war, according to research to be published this week."
(Stuart Millar and Richard Norton-Taylor
Wednesday January 29, 2003
The Guardian )

'If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines'"The respected Washington, DC publication The Hill has confirmed that former conservative radio talk-show host and now Republican U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel was the head of, and continues to own part interest in, the company that owns the company that installed, programmed, and largely ran the voting machines that were used by most of the citizens of Nebraska."
via disinfo.com

In its early stages the number of machines infected by the worm was doubling in size every 8.5 seconds, according to a team led by David Moore of the University of California at San Diego."

At its peak, achieved approximately three minutes after it was released, the worm scanned 55 million internet hosts per second. It infected at least 75,000 victims, and probably considerably more," said a member of the team.'

Someday (if they don't already) these things will modify their own code to create new vulnerabilities and protect themselves from antivirus countermeasures.
via my analog life

"From an idea that was only considered practicable 10 years ago, scientists say they have succeeded in teleporting laser photons over two kilometers (1.25 miles), the biggest distance yet achieved."
via my analog life

Tuesday, 4 February 2003

"I want to openly deny at this stage an allegiance with either the pro or anti-war lobbies. I have yet to fully make up my mind about the need, the expediency, the pragamatics or the morality of a potential conflict. What I have made up my mind about is that it's too bloody serious an issue to let people sloganeer, to have individuals try and shut down necessary debate or to dismiss opposing viewpoints as the products of selfish, diseased or un-Christian degenerates. Thousands of people are likely to be killed as a result of this action - it's immoral not to agonise over whether it's the right decision or not."

i'm watching martin bashir interviewing micheal jackson. you know the drill, more airtime given to another dreary rich person, with little to offer other than sentimental platitudes and childhood pain blah blah boo hoo. and the interviewer never managing to rise beyond the tabloid judgements of 'bizarre' and 'disturbing'

then, in the ad break, theres an ad for homepride pasta bake. and it occured to me that they don't advertise flour anymore. i don't mean just homepride flour, but any flour at all.

i mean flour is such a basic ancient human foodstuff, and other basics like toilet paper and washing powders are still advertised. when did flour ads become extinct?

Monday, 3 February 2003

3: "Special: The Truth About Vox:Why did the Secret Service raid the house of an Internet rabble-rouser?
Furthermore, Vox's website was quietly and quickly taken down. On Tuesday, January 21, Network Solutions, the site's domain provider, took www.VoxNyc.com off the Internet, claiming nonpayment, and transferred ownership to a Hong Kong company. Vox says they did take payment and he's got the cancelled check to prove it. He said he plans to sue Verisign/Network Solutions. "

4: THE MOSSAD'S "AL-QAEDA""the Israeli Mossad and other Israeli intelligence services have been involved in a 13-month effort to "recruit" an Israeli-run, phony "al-Qaeda cell" among Palestinians, so that Israel could achieve a frontline position in the U.S. war against terrorism and get a green light for a worldwide "revenge without borders" policy. The question: Does the United States have the moral fiber to investigate?"

i'd only just opened a letter from the development manager of my housing association, in reference to the last accident.

the good news is that i've got new windows in the lounge and bedroom. in fact one of the men, who was installing the windows, was under where they came through the ceiling. he wasn't injured fortunately. i found it kind of helped to have someone present during the latest fuck up -that i wasn't hallucinating all this outrageous bollocks- and the new windows look good at least.

Sunday, 2 February 2003

'Police Attack Nude Anti-Police Brutality Protesters at the World Social Forum.'

"Police did what police do best when they violently attacked protesters and bystanders on the last day of the World Social Forum.

It started when a Mapuche woman who was attending the WSF and staying at the international youth camp was arrested with charges of "obscene acts" for bathing nude in a river.

Activists saw this and organized over 400 people to protest by nonviolently taking their clothes off in solidarity. When the nude protest left the youth camp to march downtown the police attacked. After injuring and arresting some of the the nude protesters the police lashed out at journalists and bystanders. An unknown number of people were hospitalized or arrested as a result of the police assault.
(indymedia)

"A Washington Post investigation published on December 26, 2002 quotes anonymous CIA and other government officials who confirm that US military and CIA personnel employ physical coercion during their interrogation of suspects and that US officials believe these practices are necessary and unavoidable in light of the September 11th terrorist attacks. They state that CIA is using "stress and duress" techniques at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, A BASE LEASED FROM BRITAIN at Diego Garcia Island in the Indian Ocean, and numerous other secret facilities worldwide.

The CIA reportedly transfers suspects, along with a list of questions, to foreign intelligence services of countries routinely criticized by the US Department of State for torturing suspects, where they are alleged to be SEVERELY TORTURED with the ASSENT AND ENCOURAGEMENT of the UNITED STATES. These countries include Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Syria. One official stated, "We don't kick the [expletive] out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the [expletive] out of them."

Anonymous sources quoted in the Washington Post article have stated that those held in the CIA detention center "are sometimes kept standing or kneeling for hours, in black hoods or spray-painted goggles," and are duct-taped to stretchers for transport. The Post continues that according to Americans with direct knowledge and others who have witnessed the treatment, that suspects are often beat-up and confined in tiny rooms and are also blindfolded and handcuffed following arrest. Later, suspects are sometimes "held in awkward, painful positions and deprived of sleep with a 24-hour bombardment of lights" and loud noises. The Post article goes on to say that national security officials suggested that pain killers, on at least one occasion, were "used selectively" to treat a detainee that was shot in the groin during apprehension.

National security officials interviewed for the investigation defended the use of such techniques as necessary to prevent further terrorist attacks. As one official put it, "If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, you probably aren't doing your job." Ethically, such techniques are seen as deplorable, but interrogators see them as necessary when information must be gained from a reluctant subject."

Its the concept of 'necessity' that most stands out here for me. Because it is therefore equally "necessary" to disrupt the selfish exploitative globally destructive monster of american/western business and foreign policies through bombings and crashing hijacked planes etc.

Also it was my impression that this entire wikipedia entry on the "war on terrorism", of which this is just a part, contains far too few links in its sections dealing with opposition to it.

"Jack Sarfatti reported that Friday evening, December 6, 2002 “someone called the Art Bell radio show, claimed his connection with the military and informed that a UFO crashed in Iraq several years ago.

The USA is currently searching for any pretext to invade Iraq. In fact, the USA is motivated by the greatest fear that Saddam will reverse-engineer the crashed alien spacecraft.”

"I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers. Sometimes I wish it had been.

What has happened, though, is that it has been taken over by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone Cops-style coup d’etat imaginable. And those now in charge of the federal government are upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka “Christians,” and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities, or “PPs.”

To say somebody is a PP is to make a perfectly respectable medical diagnosis, like saying he or she has appendicitis or athlete’s foot. The classic medical text on PPs is The Mask of Sanity by Dr. Hervey Cleckley. Read it! PPs are presentable, they know full well the suffering their actions may cause others, but they do not care. They cannot care because they are nuts. They have a screw loose!

And what syndrome better describes so many executives at Enron and WorldCom and on and on, who have enriched themselves while ruining their employees and investors and country, and who still feel as pure as the driven snow, no matter what anybody may say to or about them? And so many of these heartless PPs now hold big jobs in our federal government, as though they were leaders instead of sick."
(By Joel Bleifuss. 1.27.03)
(via my analog life)

on last wednesday's HOME FRONT, BBC2's garden-and-interior make-over show:

"Q: why is it good to put different levels in a garden?

A: because ground isn't naturally flat.

Q: so is this an attempt at a return to naturalism?

A: no, its an attempt to go on a journey in a small space."

also there was a BBC 2 prog last monday, titled: "the hunt for britain's paedophiles: operation door knock. part one" (according to the tv guide in my celebrity packed heat magazine).

the programme included a scene of pure warhol intent when a peadophile responds to the camera's intense harrasment by shielding his face with a small hand mirror.reflecting back at ourselves aswell as the media. at any moment i expected him to say: "why don't you just tell me what you want me to say, and i'll repeat it," in a flat andy voice.

the accused paedophile's point was , i assume, that we live in a society that is obsessed with youth and being young. in fact we live in a society that has become obsessed with ridding our bodies of adult body hair. back sack and crack waxing etc. we are all pre-pubescent now.

and then there was the paedo crime squad guy who showed the camera sexual pictures drawn by small children, and he said "its disgusting. children wouldn't normally draw this."

i disagree. surely some children 'normally' would. when i was a small child, in the pre-internet 1960s, i wasn't drawing porno pictures, but i had conscious sexual desires and detailed fantasies for other boys my age. and i got it on with some of them. i was also consciously flirtatious as a kid with some adults. i probably embarrased the hell out of them, especially if they were straight. i didn't have sex with any adults, but i wanted to. my point is that i am not a survivor of any sexual abuse in my chilhood, i was simply a child who had sexual desires and fantasies about other kids and about adults.

its absurd to white-wash child sexuality from the equation. its absurd to constantly attempt to contextualise children as "innocent" and sexuality as the opposite of innocence.

and while we're on the topic, the recent celeb-paedo arrests: those news bites, where talking heads speak on behalf of the accused, and equate all the charity work they've done as testimony to their inability to be a paedophile. hello. paedo-priests and paedo-police officers do plenty of good work too remember. people can do good things and be a peadophile simultaneously.

Miles Peterson is Bibleman
Occupation: School Teacher
Tools: The Full Armor of God
Favorite Color: Purple
Life Bible Verse: Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ because He gives me strength."
Profile: Miles Peterson was a man who had wealth, status and success. Still, something was lacking. Now transformed by the Word of the Lord and empowered by His strength, Miles Peterson lives out a pledge to fight evil in the name of God, under the identity of Bibleman.

episode: "breaking the bonds of disobedience"
"In this latest adventure, the Bible Adventure Team discovers their old nemesis Luxor Spawndroth has devised a plan to trick Bibleman and young actress Lia Martinez into disobeying God. By using his Microbius Disobedientis (the germ of disobedience), Luxor convinces Bibleman and Lia to give up their roles in a local theatre production. With tempers flaring and time running out, Bibleman and Lia learn a powerful lesson in Proverbs 19:16 "Whoever obeys the commands protects his life."

From the unbelievable kidnapping of one of the Adventure Team members, to a final showdown in the streets of Randall Town, this attention-grabbing episode takes you to a new level of action! Will Bibleman overcome the disobedient factor? Has the time come for the Bible Adventure Team to recruit a real live Biblegirl? Find out how God uses obedience to help Lia be more than she ever dreamt in: Breaking the Bonds of Disobedience."

As part of the Art Not War exhibition currently running at Conway Hall 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1 untill 15th of March, artist Steven Whinnery will be performing his piece "...I'm sending you all my love".

On Saturday 15th of February 2003 at 12 noon Greenwich Meantime (as the Don’t Attack Iraq demonstration assembles at Embankment in London) he will sit down wherever he is and send you all his love.

To be one of the recipients of Steven's love, please send him an email or a text message with your name by the 15th of February so that you can be on the list that he will have carefully prepared and kept pressed to his heart. On the stoke of 12 noon GMT on the 15th of February 2003 he will read out all the names on list, after each one he will say "...I'm sending you all my love". Email him on: s.whinnery@zoom.co.uk He's waiting to hear from you.

Now, as a naked protestor it has always been important to make a simple distinction between public-sex and public-nudity.

nakedness is no more or less of a sexualised appearance than being clothed is. my choice to wear or not wear clothes in public is equally no more or less sexually motivated. public nudity is not how i get my rocks off, it is a statement about choices, simple freedoms and humanity. my cock is no more or less sexual than my fingers, my nose, or my skin etc etc

all that is true, but i don't see anything wrong with public sex either (clothed or unclothed). why must sex be private? meeting people/strangers in public space needn't be solely restricted to vocal conversation or always having to spend money and resources in commercial social spaces, cafes, bars, clubs. if you've never had group sex with strangers in a park, without ever speaking once, i urge you to try it at least once in your life. and some people are great to have sex with, but i wouldn't want to take them home and get to know them. i've met and enjoyed plenty of people through sex that i wouldn't meet or enjoy through conversation (and vice-versa).

-The Home Office minister, Hilary Benn, made clear that couples who have sex in public toilets would no longer be prosecuted as long as they could not be seen. "No one wants to be an unwitting spectator to other people having sex in a public place," he said.-

the dusty old policing of sex and sexuality in this country desperately needs updating. there are doubtless numerous welcome improvements in the uk government's bill. however, quotes such as the above continue to propagate the fundamental assumption that sex is something bad, that must be hidden. its not. i mean i hate to sound like a child of the sixties here, (and i literally was a child in the 60s) but sex really is no big deal. its like breathing or eating (and yeah, i know plenty of people have a fucked up relationship with food too). sex is a communication, its a sensory alternative to words, it is a pleasure (don't downgrade pleasure in your priorities), it is a mutual reality, a way to meet a diversity of people, it is touch and stimulation, giving and receiving, its something to share.

and please, don't write to me any bollocks about protecting children from seeing sex. children need protection from being unwilling participants in sex, same as being an unwilling participant in anything. but a child can't be damaged from casually seeing sex.

for fucks sake, there are plenty of things i don't want to see in public space: dreary architecture, children being smacked by their parents, and people-with-money ignoring people-without, are 3 things that come to mind. but heaven forbid we should unwittingly see people indulging in open pleasure with each other. or worse still, that we might be invited to join in.